OVERVIEW An absolute brute of a muscle car PROSRidiculous power, equally ridiculous exhaust note, retro-cool styling, surprisingly spacious inside CONSFuel economy, too heavy, zero respect for subtlety, Mustang and Camaro handle far better VALUE FOR MONEYFair — on one hand, you get almost 800 HP for a fraction on the price of most supercars. On the other hand, the performance isnt much improved over the standard Hellcat WHAT TO CHANGE?Nothing HOW TO SPEC IT?Exactly like this Clayton Seams: Surely, cars aren’t forever. They’ve been our go-to mode of personal transport for over a century, but it’s inevitable that the car as we know it, especially gasoline-powered ones, will eventually fade away to make room for a newer form of personal transport. It likely won’t fully happen in another 50, or maybe even 100 years, but surely, it will happen. And when it does, and all the cars are relegated to air-conditioned museums with marble floors, we’ll still talk about the Dodge Challenger Hellcat — the last of the dinosaurs, the car that thumbed its supercharger at convention and threw caution (and tire smoke) to the wind. This is a car for the ages. Specifically the ages of 5 to 15 because principally, the 2019 Dodge Challenger Hellcat is a car for children — and childish adults. It has angry cat badges on it, it comes in purple, lime green, bright blue and a handful of other loud colours, and it’s the size of a wooly mammoth. But this isn’t just any run-of-the-mill, 717-horsepower Hellcat. No, this purple people-eater (and tire-shredder) has the $18,000 Redeye package, which bumps output from its supercharged 6.2-litre Hemi V8 engine to an insane 797 horsepower and 707 pound-feet of torque. But what else do you get for your money? Nick Tragianis: First thing’s first — although you may think FCA treats the Hellcat Redeye as its own model, and indeed FCA markets it that way — it’s technically an option package on top of the regular Hellcat. It certainly isn’t cheap, but it comes with a laundry list of goodies all in the name of more speed. For instance, the 2.7-litre supercharger (the largest available on any production car, by the way), is larger than the Hellcat’s 2.4L unit and provides more boost; 14.5 psi in the Redeye vs. 11.6 in the standard car. You also get a higher redline, two fuel pumps, and two final drive ratios — our tester was equipped with the 2.62:1 ratio — plus a few bits off the Challenger Demon, including its Torque Reserve feature, Power and After-Run Chillers, and beefed-up prop shafts, to name a few. Unlike the standard Hellcat, the Redeye is only available with an eight-speed automatic transmission. So, that $18,000 isn’t a complete waste, especially considering the extra 80 horsepower and 51 lb.-ft. of torque. But is it just me, or are the actual numbers not that much more impressive versus the standard Hellcat? We’re talking a zero-to-100 km/h time reduced by a mere tenth of a second — 3.4 seconds in the Redeye versus 3.5 over the regular kitty, and a 326 km/h top speed versus 321. But I suppose those numbers, although piecemeal and ones that will be incredibly rare to experience, are improvements nonetheless. CS: It’s true. Paying $18,000 for more power on an already-overpowered car doesn’t make the most sense, but it’s also a bit of a quagmire to apply logic to a near-800-horsepower car with purple paint. The Hellcat is an attitude machine, attracting jealous stares at red lights and consuming nearby souls every time the throttle is opened. It’s a car that thrives in its wrongness and doesn’t try to fit in for even a second in this mobility obsessed 2019. How does it drive? Violently. At any legal speed, mashing the gas pedal to the floor will send the traction control light flickering for its life as the rear tires squirm for grip and the Redeye catapults itself into the distance. Sure, there are faster cars than the Hellcat; its mid-three-second zero-to-100 km/h time isn’t record-breaking, but it’s the way you get there. The shrill whine from the blower fights for airspace with the tearing V8 exhaust. In a way, you wish it could last longer, but you’ve already passed get a ticket speeds and are now firmly in the go to jail zone. Is the Redeye too fast? NT: Yes, because obviously the regular Hellcat clearly wasn’t fast enough. I firmly maintain the Challenger SRT 392 — or, more accurately these days, the Challenger Scat Pack 392 with the Dynamics Package — is the sweet spot of the lineup, but the Hellcat is truly a different animal altogether. The Redeye is neither light, nor does it handle particularly well, although the 305-section tires do lend a fair bit of grip. But it’s the Redeye’s sheer ferocity and violence that make it entertaining as hell; you’ll crave open stretches of road, highway on-ramps and tunnels. The Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro are far more sports cars than the Challenger will ever be; the Jaguar F-Type offers a far more
Origin: Car Review: 2019 Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye